Archive for MTA Economics

The Citizens Budget Commission believes a high cap on unlimited MetroCards could alleviate some of the MTA’s budgetary woes. (Source: CBC)

I love my Unlimited MetroCard. I’ve been using one for years, and it makes using the subway essentially free. I pay once per month — in my case, on a pre-tax basis — and get a card that simply tells me to “Go.” I can swipe in at Grand Army Plaza and take a 2 or 3 to Franklin Ave. without thinking about the cost or a subsequent card purchase. I can hop on a bus without a thought, and in fact, the more I ride, the better a deal I get from my unlimited card.

In a very real sense, as I wrote half a decade ago, the Unlimited MetroCards ushered in a revolution in New York City transit history. As then-Gov. George Pataki noted in the late 1990s, ”The goal” with these MetroCards “was very simply to empower the rider. Empower the person who takes the subway and the person who takes the bus by giving them the broadest possible range of options as to how they want to choose to use the mass transit system.”

And it worked. The average cost per ride a subway rider must pay declined precipitously, and only recently, through aggressive fare hikes, has the MTA clawed back revenue it lost to these unlimited cards. Still, the MTA drew in more in inflation-adjusted dollars in 1996 before unlimited ride cards were introduced than it does today. Furthermore, ridership has spiked — to over 6 million per day at times during peak ridership seasons last fall — and the MTA’s fare discounts push ridership.

But has the unlimited ride card outlived its useful life? That’s the question New York City’s Citizens Budget Commission posed recently. The independent group argues that, with ridership up and demand greater than subway supply, the MTA could incrementally rollback the incentives from the unlimited ride cards. After all, in the 1990s, the agency had to incentivize riders to return to a restored system, but today, the system sells itself. By capping unlimited ride cards at levels beyond the reach of all but the power users, the MTA could, they argue, draw in an additional $93 million a year.

Here’s their take:

The need for increased fare revenue need not be met exclusively through current practices of raising base fares and adjusting discounted prices. The MTA can generate revenue by capping the number of rides permitted on the 7-day and 30-day passes. Unlike recent fare increases hitting nearly every straphanger, the caps would provide needed revenue while affecting fewer riders, many who now enjoy very deep discounts, and would still retain heavily discounted fares.

Based on data provided by the MTA for October 2013, riders used 7-day passes for 45 million rides per month and 30-day passes for 66 million rides per month. These rides can be attributed to an estimated 2.8 million 7-day passes and 1.1 million 30-day passes. At a price of $30 the break-even number of rides for a 7-day pass was 13; for a 30-day pass at $112 the number was 48 rides. (Both calculations use the $2.38 fare available with a volume discount.) Rides above these numbers are effectively “free” for the pass holder.

Each “free” ride represented $2.38 in foregone revenue assuming the unlimited passes were eliminated and passengers purchased volume discount rides instead. The monthly number of “free” rides on the unlimited passes is estimated at 28.4 million. This equals about $67 million in foregone revenue monthly, or $807 million annually. Since a significant share of unlimited pass purchasers does not actually use the cards enough to reach the break-even point, these “unused” rides are extra revenue for the MTA. If this extra revenue was also foregone, the net gain from eliminating the unlimited passes would be $619 million annually. But eliminating unlimited passes would be a radical change, causing hardship for many straphangers and undermining the sense of convenient mobility the passes are intended to promote. A fairer strategy is to cap the number of rides on these passes at a number above the break-even point.

The CBC acknowledges that the MTA hasn’t made enough information available to assess the proper cut-off for unlimited ride cards, but they assume a hair over three swipes per day, an exceedingly high volume of rides. Limiting pay-per-rides to 22 swipes per 7 days or 92 per 30 days could lead to eliminating nearly 4 million rides that are free — that is, they are taken after the breakeven point on MetroCards. The unlimited ride cards would still be a great deal, but the MTA would capitalize on very high volume users (and those who try to defraud the system by selling swipes) to the tune of $7.8 million a month.

Part of me hates this idea. The psychological benefits of a true unlimited ride card encourage transit use at a time when New York City’s transit advocates should do all they can to keep residents out of private automobiles. It cuts against the grain of environmental advocacy, congestion pricing proponents and Vision Zero efforts to add any new psychological barrier, albeit a small one, to transit use.

But on the other hand, it’s hard to deny that revenue is revenue. The CBC estimates that only 60,000 30-day card users and around 415,000 7-day card users would exceed their lofty cap, and those figures are only 15 percent of all 7-day card users and 5 percent of 30-day users, relatively small percentages overall. It’s an idea that warrants some debate and discussion. As the CBC says, “Unlike general fare increases affecting nearly every straphanger, the caps would provide financial benefits while affecting only the relatively few riders who use their 7-day and 30-day passes most heavily and would still benefit from discounted fares.”

When I read New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli’s release about his latest report on the MTA, I rolled my eyes a bit. DiNapoli, picking up on the MTA’s $15 billion capital funding gap, noted that while the MTA’s finances are better, the riders could wind up shouldering a huge portion of the next five-year plan, and the Comptroller said, riders shouldn’t be expected to pay for everything.

We could debate for hours whether or not that last statement is true, but DiNapoli’s point isn’t a new one. “The MTA is in better financial condition thanks to its own efforts and a stronger economy,” DiNapoli said yet again. “Over the coming months, the MTA will have to work closely with its funding partners to close the $15 billion gap in its capital program. Additional borrowing could increase pressure on fares and tolls, and while the MTA should look for opportunities for savings, deep cuts could affect the future reliability of the transit system and jeopardize expansion projects.”

Overall, DiNapoli’s report regurgitates MTA talking points. He notes that subway ridership has hit highs not seen since the late 1940s and that the MTA’s debt burden will continue to increase for the foreseeable future. He highlighted the new labor deals, unfunded pension obligations and steep fare hikes. It’s basically a summary of the last six months’ worth of news. (You can read it here as a PDF if you need a primer.)

Despite the mundane nature of DiNapoli’s report, one part is worth a deeper dive. His report “cautions that every $1 billion borrowed would increase debt service by an amount comparable to a 1 percent increase in fares and tolls.” Thus, if the MTA needs to borrow that $15 billion to cover its capital funding costs, it could do so simply by raising fares by an additional 15 percent. That’s a big fare hike. The MTA’s current plan for 2015 — once it gets released some time after Gov. Cuomo’s upcoming Election Day — calls for only a 4 percent hike, down from an originally planned 8 percent.

So while it’s easy to dismiss DiNapoli’s report for being nothing more than a news aggregator, the point he makes about the fares is a political chit for the MTA. If no one steps up with a different funding scheme and the MTA is serious about this $30 billion plan, the riders will be footing the bill for a substantial portion of it. Maybe that’s OK; maybe the people who use the system should pay for more of it. But now we know it’s a choice that Albany will make willingly. Is it the right one? I don’t think so.

The MTA’s rehabilitation of the Columbus Circle subway stop was an odd project. Like many before and after it, it took far longer than the MTA budgeted and ended not with a ribbon-cutting or even an announcement but with a whimper. One day, it was under construction, and the next day it wasn’t. It’s still not quite finished either as the corridor underneath 8th Ave. remains simply that.

As part of the original plans, this corridor was to become a commercial space with high-end tenants. It was, then-MTA head Jay Walder told me, to be the first of a new breed of MTA real estate. Instead of dingy newsstands and off-beat shops, Columbus Circle was to pave the way for a re-envisioning of subway real estate. It could be popular and a destination in and of itself.

Now, years after the renovation wrapped, that dream is inching closer to reality, Matt Chaban wrote in The Times this week. Chaban profiled Susan Fine, the current head of Oases Real Estate and the former MTA exec who was in charge of the rebirth of Grand Central, as she works to draw in tenants at Columbus Circle. Beginning 2015, 30 storefronts will line in the corridor as a set of shops called TurnStyle. These stores will include grab-and-go options such as Magnolia bakery, some electronics and high-end shopping spots, and larger upscale fast food types.

If Fine is successful — and that’s not a given as she has to convince New Yorkers to dine in a subway station — the MTA could bring this public-private commercial partnership to other subway stations with high foot traffic and open spaces. Taking up residence in the 7th busiest subway certainly won’t hurt the cause. “The trick was really figuring out strategies to slow people down,” Jessica Walsh, one of Fine’s partners, said. “If we can make it an interesting space with its own identity, we’re pretty confident we’ll not only catch commuters, but tourists and even people on their lunch break. Deep down, we all love the subway.”

CM Rose lead Staten Island calls for transit investments

As the MTA’s next five-year capital plan has come into view, complaints from Staten Island have increased. I wrote about the isolated borough’s complaints last week and pinpointed politicians as the leading cause of their problems. To be fair to Staten Island, though, not all of their politicians are as opposed to transit improvements as others, and this week Council Member Debi Rose flashed her credentials.

In a piece for the Staten Island Advance, Rose made the case for more transit investments for Staten Island. Not satisfied with the new ferries or the promise of new rail cars for the Staten Island Railway, Rose argued for some use for the North Shore and West Shore rights of way. She isn’t wrong, but her piece highlights the political problems here as well. Rose admits that the city doesn’t invest enough in transit, and although she rails against fare hikes and toll increases, she doesn’t propose a solution or a funding scheme.

As I’ve said before, the answer here is simple: Put your money where your mouth is, and the MTA will listen. If Rose wants BRT for the North Shore ROW, all she has to do is find a way to pay for it. But would she risk alienating Staten Island drivers, a strong constituency who will not be the first to support a congestion pricing plan? I doubt it. Without leadership that leads to dollars, nothing will happen.

The Man-Spread Blight

Finally, a more whimsical piece from amNew York that delves into one of the most egregious breaches of subway etiquette: the man-spread. We’ve all been there when some guy next to us is sitting with his legs spread far wider than any normal human would ever need. Perhaps it’s overcompensation; perhaps its ego or obliviousness; perhaps it’s a combination of all three. Whatever the cause, it drives me nuts.

In an amNY piece, Sheila Anne Feeney tried to get to the bottom of this phenomenon, and her article will in turns amuse and infuriate you. The perps and defenders act so righteous — “Men need space,” one person said — while those trying to find seats get glares or worse.

When the MTA started moving off of its net-zero labor demands a few months ago, we knew how this story would end. The MTA’s economic picture would improve as the region’s economy grew stronger, and the unions would demand a greater share of the pie. They would get their slice while the riders would get the scraps. Now that the MTA has sealed the deal with the TWU and LIRR unions, the financial picture for the next few years has taken shape, and lo and behold, riders are getting the bare minimum in service increases and biennial 4 percent fare hikes while the labor deals will cost $1.5 billion over the next four years.

As presented by the MTA on Monday during its monthly Board meetings and as later broadcast in a press release, the MTA anticipates that the new labor deals will result in annual increases in expenditures of $260 million. They swear, though, that the money won’t come from higher-than-anticipated fare hikes. Rather, the MTA will “reallocate” resources to pay for these labor costs as well as some service enhancements while maintaining pay-as-you-go funding for $5.4 billion worth of capital expenses for the next five-year plan. Without meaningful work rule reform, this is indeed a pyrrhic victory.

In fact, it may not even be a victory. The MTA will still take $80 million away from those PAYGO funds each year and simply have less to spend on capital projects. That’s one of the reasons the MTA faces a significant capital funding gap. Here’s the agency explaining other sources of money:

The plan makes several long-term trade-offs to ensure revenues meet ongoing obligations. Over the four-year period, supplemental contributions to an LIRR pension plan totaling $110 million will be eliminated, though all actuarially-required contributions will continue. Also, $254 million will be withdrawn, and additional contributions totaling $533 million will be suspended for four years, from a discretionary fund for future retiree health benefits which has no mandatory funding level. The plan also reduces pay-as-you funding for the MTA Capital Program by $80 million per year, which is equivalent to a $1.5 billion reduction in Capital Program funding capacity.

And how about the rest of us? Tell the people what they’ve won. For $15.5 million, we’re going to get….weekend J train service to Broad St. some time in mid-2015, extensions of service to Gateway Center II along the B13 and B83 bus routes, and added service along the Bx5. Staten Island residents will enjoy more frequent SIR and bus service to lineup with the increased overnight ferry service, and we’ll get two more Select Bus Service routes next year. Transit is also planning to better respond to signal problems in order to cut down unplanned service issues during the day.

Now, I don’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth, but it’s easy to see who gets the better end of that deal. This is the fiscal reality we live in though. The unions outlasted the MTA’s economic downturn, and the rest of us get saddled with a disproportionate amount of the costs without enjoying a similar share of the benefits. Less money for capital expenses; service improvements that raise just barely above the “token” level and more delays for future expansion and technology infrastructure projects — it’s all just part of the same old song and dance.

OK, OK. Maybe there’s no Jeffrey Lebowski to ask for money, but New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli can’t seem to find around $12 billion for the MTA’s next capital plan. This is hardly a breaking piece of news for anyone who’s watched the recent politicking behind the MTA’s looming need to present a new five-year spending plan, but DiNapoli’s report drives home the fact that the MTA has to spend a lot of money it doesn’t have to keep our trains and buses running smoothly.

“Millions of New Yorkers rely on the MTA transit system and while it is in far better condition than it was 30 years ago, much more needs to be done,” DiNapoli said in a statement. “The MTA has to find a way to finance improvements without putting the financial burden on riders. This can be achieved only by working closely with the federal government, New York state and New York City to develop a long-term financing program and by using resources effectively and efficiently. Otherwise, needed repairs will be pushed even further into the future, and fares and tolls could rise even faster.”

DiNapoli’s main point isn’t necessarily that $12 billion is missing, but rather that $12 billion in funding will not materialize without sending the agency further into debt. In his short report, the New York State Comptroller analyzes the spending needs for the MTA and concludes, as we know, that the next capital plan isn’t a sexy one. Unless the MTA is aggressive in requesting funding for future phases of the Second Ave. Subway or work beyond the never-ending East Side Access plan, the capital program will fund much-needed signal and infrastructure upgrades and rolling stock purchases.

That’s not to say that these aren’t 100 percent necessary for the future healthy of New York City; they are. But when it comes to headlines, few New Yorkers are going to read about signal modernization and long delays caused by the work with any joy. This is stuff we never see even if our daily rides depend on it. Still, says DiNapoli, despite 30 years of investment, the system is not in a state of good repair and may never get there without considerably more investment.

As DiNapoli notes, this funding gap was a problem with the last five-year plan, and the MTA “solved” this problem by cutting expenditures and bonding out its obligations, thus adding more debt to the ledger. Debt service in 2018, notes the Comptroller, will be three times what it was in 2005. How long can this go on?

Ultimately, then, the issue isn’t that $12 billion is missing from the MTA’s capital budget. Rather, the issue is that the MTA will have to continue to go into debt to cover the funding gap. Can they add another round of debt to their finances without beginning to impact service? As debt counts against the operations budget, already riders pay for this debt as fares go up to cover operating obligations. DiNapoli doesn’t offer a stark picture for the future, but the meaning is there. Someone will pay for that $12 billion. Either the MTA doesn’t perform work or somehow it gets paid. Either way, without direct contributions from outside sources, riders alone will foot that bill.

For the past few years, through the tenures of three different MTA heads, “net zero” had become a mantra. Without a net-zero labor increase, the MTA’s budget would be deeply in the red with the costs expected to fall on the riders in the form of service cuts, fare hikes or both. As late as February, the MTA warned of steep fare hikes if they couldn’t toe the net-zero line. The Citizens Budget Commission has long since endorsed the approach, and the MTA and TWU were at war.

Then, suddenly, it was election season, and the MTA and TWU were, with the help of Gov. Andrew Cuomo, shaking hands and best buds. Without exacting much in the way of labor reform — and certainly without anything close to net-zero — the MTA gave the TWU a new contract with only a few concessions. The raises — 8 percent over five years — are deserved, and there are some givebacks. But ultimately, the MTA’s labor costs are going to increase by $411 million through 2016. That ain’t net-zero.

In a document released yesterday to bond investors [pdf], the MTA offered the public its first glimpse at the ramifications of the deal. The Memorandum of Understanding won’t be released until after the TWU votes on it, and such a vote isn’t likely until after next week’s MTA Board meeting. So what we know is that the MTA is on the hook for a lot of money. The deal includes retroactive payments of $126 million and a current bump in labor expenses of around $55 million. In 2015 and 2016, the MTA expects to spend $116 million and $114 million respectively, though some experts — notably Nicole Gelinas — believes these estimates to be low.

To cover some of the costs, the new deal includes an increase in the amount of employee contributions to health and other benefits as well as a new “wage progression schedule.” Still, someone has to come up with $411 million, and MTA Chairman and CEO Tom Prendergast insists it won’t fail to the fare paying public this time around. So how is the MTA going to pay? Read it (and weep):

MTA anticipates that the onetime payment for retroactive wages in 2014 will be funded from monies derived from released 2013 general reserves budgeted for voluntary deposits to the MTA Long Island Rail Road Plan for Additional Pensions that would have reduced the unfunded liability and future expenses. Increases in current year and annual ongoing costs are anticipated to be paid from funds budgeted for voluntary deposits to the MTA Long Island Rail Road Plan for Additional Pensions, and a portion of monies earmarked for voluntary deposit into the OPEB trust for future retiree healthcare costs.

It gets better. If other unions that do not have contracts in place sign similar deals, the MTA would have to find another $300 million. This money, the agency says, will come from voluntary deposits into the OPEB trust and a reduction of PAYGO capital funds of approximately $70 million. To say this doesn’t fall on the riders is sleight of hand accounting. In fact, this entire budget is sleight hand accounting.

But now we know: The MTA is robbing future riders to pay for the present. It doesn’t bother Cuomo because he’ll be gone from Albany before the bill comes due, but for the rest of us, this isn’t a good deal. We may not pay now because the MTA will keep those looming fare hikes low, but give it a few years. We the riders will be paying then or else the system will suffer.

For a little while, it appeared as though Albany would stop Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s latest raid on transit funding, but when the budgetary dust settled this past week, the status quo remained unchanged. Despite an initial plan to grab $40 million that didn’t pass the New York State Assembly or Senate, state legislators ultimately accepted a budget that diverted $30 million in transit funding the state had previously agreed to issue. With fare hikes on tap for 2015 (and every two years after that), the diversion is a stark reminder of the way Albany treats New York City’s transit riders.

“The sacrifice of dedicated transit funds will mean less money available to provide subway, bus, Metro-North and Long Island Railroad service. Taking away transit funding at the state level has a direct impact on levels of service, which still have not been restored to 2010 levels, and on fares, which continue to rise every other year,” a group of advocates including the Straphangers Campaign, the Riders Alliance and TSTC said in a release this weekend. “Sadly, our elected leaders have sent a clear message that the State can—and will—use the MTA as a piggy bank, siphoning dollars out of the pockets of transit riders.”

What made this year’s raid a bit more galling were words from MTA Chair Tom Prendergast essentially supporting it. I don’t expect Prendergast, who sits atop the MTA at the pleasure of the governor, to speak out forcefully against the actions of his boss, but the MTA seems more resigned to this budgetary fate than we’d like. “Our needs are being met,” Prendergast said to The Daily News. “It’s as simple as that.”

Even as the MTA says its needs are being met, though, are the needs of the riders being met? The $30 million, as many have pointed out, won’t lead to massive service cuts or an increase in the planned fare hike, but it’s money the MTA doesn’t have to invest in service or debt payments. It’s money the MTA doesn’t have when the budget inevitably takes a nose dive in a few years. It’s money the riders won’t see re-invested in a system that could use every dollar it can find.

Over the past few years, we’ve seen Cuomo repeatedly reject efforts to make transit raids more transparent as he has vetoed a lockbox that would require impact statements when funds are diverted. He’s taken the credit for good MTA news and none of the blame for the bad. So this latest raid isn’t shocking. Yet, it’s still a reminder that transit riders, even as they fill the system in record-setting numbers, are the ones left holding the short straw year after year once the budgetary dust settles.

Throughout the course of his career, Richard Ravitch has been something of a jack-of-all-trades in New York and an on-again, off-again savior for transit. He’s served as the Lieutenant Government of New York, and he authored a plan to revive the MTA’s finances during the depths of the agency’s financial crisis. He also served as the authority’s head during the start of its revival in the early 1980s. When he talks, New Yorkers generally listen.

On Wednesday, Ravitch unexpectedly took the microphone during the MTA’s Board meeting, and he had some strident words on the morning of a controversial vote. As you may recall, a few weeks ago, out of the blue, Gov. Cuomo announced a rollback of the Verrazano Bridge toll. In a move that would cost the MTA $14 million in dedicated revenue, Cuomo forked over a discount on the toll. Although the state will reimburse $7 million, this move comes without any corresponding aspects of Sam Schwartz’s traffic plan, a move to compensate transit riders or a nod to the MTA’s labor or economic situation.

Thus, when Ravitch took the microphone Wednesday morning, he did not mince words. Noting first that New York law requires MTA Board members to represent the MTA first, he leveled serious charges toward board members. “The law made it very clear that you, as members of the board of a public authority, have as your fiduciary responsibility an obligation to the mission of this authority,” he said. “That is your overriding obligation.”

Even though Gov. Cuomo, who ostensibly can control the board through a decent number of votes, wanted the toll plan, Ravitch believed it shouldn’t have made it past the vote, and he pointed to all the right things. “You are in the midst of two labor negotiations in which you are undoubtedly asserting, and properly so, the financial constraints that make it impossible for you to meet the demands of the labor unions. That argument is inconsistent with voluntarily reducing the revenues of this authority,” he said.

In the face of Ravitch’s words, the MTA Board still approved the toll decrease, but it was a divisive vote. Ted Mann, covering his last MTA Board meeting while on the Wall Street Journal’s transit beat, covered the turmoil:

One board member, former New York City budget director Mark Page, abstained from the vote, explaining that he didn’t believe the toll rebates were “an MTA initiative,” and hadn’t been subjected to the authority’s usual decision-making processes. “I don’t believe if the question were being asked solely of the MTA and this board that we’d be taking this action ourselves with our resources at this moment,” Mr. Page said…

But that position wasn’t embraced by the board, even as members prepared to vote in favor of the plan. “Why do lower bus fares not have an equal claim on the MTA’s finances?” member Norman Brown asked, noting that the city also provides Staten Island Ferry service, free of charge. “I live in a little place called Brooklyn,” he said. “We’re the ones that pay the toll that you’re always citing as a horrible toll.”

The six-dollar residential discount rate is “already a substantial” discount, Mr. Brown said. “Do the math.” Another board member, Jeff Kay, said the MTA should remind state officials later in the year, as the authority lobbies for financial support for its operating and capital budgets in Albany, that the authority has acceded to demands from the legislature about how it levies tolls. “I really do hope they’re taking ownership of our funding decisions,” Mr. Kay said, adding ”Guys, we’re doing what you asked us to do.”

Staten Island representatives were quick to defend the measure. “This has gone though a lot of permutation, and overcome many obstacles in the last two years to get this done,” Allen Cappelli said. “We eliminated the obstacles, got Albany on board. This was well-discussed and well thought out, and we’ve finally come to this day. I feel like doing the dance of joy.”

It’s not an easy issue. As I noted to Ted Mann on Twitter earlier in the day, while the rest of the MTA region got nothing in the vote, we do enjoy one-seat train service into Manhattan on a regular schedule. Staten Island’s been waiting 80 years for that, and such a plan isn’t on the horizon. But Cuomo’s giveaway was just that, and everyone else is going to pay as the various interest groups angling for a piece of the MTA’s pie load up for a fight.

After Gov. Andrew Cuomo vetoed the lockbox bill, New York’s transit advocates worried that it would open the door to another raid. Now that the governor’s budget is out, there are concerns that Cuomo has again reappropriated transit dollars in a way that leaves the MTA without money it expects, but the details are a bit hazy. The missing money, in fact, may not be from a misappropriation but from a decision made over a year ago to roll back some of the payroll mobility tax.

The Tri-State Transportation Campaign brought this issue to light yesterday. In Cuomo’s budget presentation, the Governor notes that “the Budget will use $40 million in surplus mass transportation operating assistance funds to pay for a portion of the debt service associated with previously issued MTA service contract bonds.”

The $40 million is barely a drop in the bucket for the MTA, and it’s not enough to avoid, say, any future potential fare hikes. But politicians are casting a wary glance. As the Daily News notes, one Brooklyn assembly rep has objected to the budget. “It’s a grab and he shouldn’t do it,” James Brennan said. “There are many possible uses of these funds that would benefit the riding public, from improved maintenance to restoration of service to mitigating fare hikes.”

The governor too defended the move. Suddenly, the same people who are always concerned with the MTA’s debt obligations are objecting to an effort to slowly pay it down. Cuomo has upped state contributions to the MTA’s operating budget and called the debt payments a “legitimate transit purpose.” I can’t get too worked up over this one.

But there’s another item TSTC highlighted that bears further examination:

While the Governor’s budget includes $310 million from the State’s General Fund to the MTA to compensate for lost revenue resulting from the rollback of the payroll mobility tax (PMT) in December 2011, this flat amount (which has been included every year since 2012) could be actually shortchanging potential revenue. The New York State Department of Labor estimates that 218,300 jobs were created in the downstate MTA region from November 2011 to November 2013, which means that additional PMT revenue likely would have been generated from these additional jobs, in excess of the $310 million. This additional revenue may have been enough to offset the proposed four percent MTA fare increase in 2015.

It’s not clear what, if any, effect the PMT would have on job-creation numbers, but it wouldn’t have led all downstate companies to freeze employment expansion. It seems clear the MTA is getting shortchanged here, and that was always a concern when Cuomo rolled back the PMTA. That, and not the debt payment issue, should be the real concern.

The zombie lawsuit to overturn the MTA payroll mobility tax has finally hit a dead end. New York’s Court of Appeals, the state’s top judicial body, has upheld the tax. The measure, a 34-cent tax on every $100 of payroll, has not been popular amongst Republican suburban legislators, but the MTA has long maintained, as they did last June, that “removal of the tax’s revenues would have had a catastrophic impact” on the region’s economy and transit system. Today’s dismissal, without comment from any judges, is a victory and should put an end to the legal wrangling over the tax.

The PMT grew out of the MTA’s last financial crisis when state legislators approved a mix of fees and taxes to bolster the agency’s bottom line. It was deeply unpopular outside of the city, and after a variety of unsuccessful challenges, plaintiffs found a sympathetic ear on Long Island. While one judge found the tax unconstitutional on shaky legal grounds, the Appellate Division revsered course. For the tax to fall now, politicians will have to step in with better solutions and replacement funds.

In responses to today’s ruling, those politicians are well aware of what awaits. Lee Zeldin, who has made a career out of opposition to the payroll tax, spoke against the court’s decision, and Nassau County Executive Ed Mangano declared a Pyrrhic victory as the structure of the tax has changed over the years. Meanwhile, other state reps from north of the city have recognized that the tax is, absent a significant amount of horse-trading, here to stay.